Although not conclusively attributing the drastic plunge in persons being shot and stabbed in the Old Capital to the state of public emergency, chief executive officer of the Spanish Town Hospital, Dwayne Francis, said it was a positive sign that there was less bloodletting.
However, he said the hospital could do well with fewer patients from motor vehicle accidents.
Speaking to The Gleaner yesterday, Francis said, “We cannot definitively say that it is because of the state of emergency in St Catherine (North Police Division) that this is occurring now. I don’t think we can prove that that was the cause, because the numbers fluctuate.”
He noted, however, that the state of public emergency “could be a contributing factor” to the 29 per cent reduction in persons who showed up at the hospital with stab wounds from March to September 2018, when compared to the same period last year. The institution has seen a 58 per cent decrease in gunshot patients.
“For last year this period, we had recorded 258 cases of stabbings, and for 2018, one hundred and eighty-three. For gunshot wounds, we recorded 144 in 2017 and 60 in 2018,” Francis said. “For wounds from blunt objects, during the 2017 period, there were 477 cases, compared to 440 in 2018.”
Francis indicated that he would like to see the trend continue.
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